A Bass-viol of Mr. Bickerstaff's acquaintance, whose mind and fortune do
not very exactly agree, proposes to set himself to sale by way of
lottery.[247] Ten thousand pounds is the sum to be raised, at threepence
a ticket, in consideration that there are more women who are willing to
be married than that can spare a greater sum. He has already made over
his person to trustees for the said money to be forthcoming, and ready
to take to wife the fortunate woman that wins him.
N.B. Tickets are given out by Mr. Charles Lillie, and Mr. John Morphew.
Each adventurer must be a virgin, and subscribe her name to her
ticket.[248]
* * * * *
Whereas the several churchwardens of most of the parishes within the
bills of mortality, have in an earnest manner applied themselves by way
of petition, and have also made a presentment of the vain and loose
deportment during divine service, of persons of too great figure in all
their said parishes for their reproof: And whereas it is therein set
forth, that by salutations given each other, hints, shrugs, ogles,
playing of fans, and fooling with canes at their mouths, and other
wanton gesticulations, their whole congregation appears rather a
theatrical audience, than a house of devotion: It is hereby ordered,
that all canes, cravats, bosom-laces, muffs, fans, snuff-boxes, and all
other instruments made use of to give persons unbecoming airs, shall be
immediately forfeited and sold; and of the sum arising from the sale
thereof, a ninth part shall be paid to the poor, and the rest to the
overseers.[249]
[Footnote 240: "I have been informed by a relation of hers, that when
Mrs. Mary Astell has accidentally seen needless visitors coming, whom
she knew to be incapable of discoursing upon any useful subject, she
would look out of the window, and jestingly tell them (as Cato did
Nasica), 'Mrs. Astell is not at home'; and in good earnest keep them
out, not suffering such triflers to make inroads upon her more serious
hours" (Ballard's "Memoirs of British Learned Ladies," 1775, p. 309).
For Swift's attacks on Mary Astell, see Nos. 32, 63.]
[Footnote 241: "Monter une perruque" is a French barber's phrase.]
[Footnote 242: See Nos. 26, 29. Duvillier or Devillier was a
hairdresser.]
[Footnote 243: May Day. In the _Spectator_ (No. 365) Budgell says: "It
is likewise on the first day of this month that we see the ruddy
milkmaid exerting herself in a most sprightly manner under a pyramid of
silver tankards, and like the virgin Tarpeia, oppressed by the costly
ornaments which her benefactors lay upon her." Similarly, Misson
("Travels in England," p. 307) says: "On the first of May, and the five
or six days following, all the pretty young country girls that serve the
town with milk, dress themselves up very neatly, and borrow abundance of
silver plate, whereof they make a pyramid, which they adorn with ribands
and flowers, and carry upon their heads, instead of their common
milkpails. In this equipage, accompanied by some of their fellow
milkmaids, and a bagpipe and fiddle, they go from door to door,
dancing before the houses of their customers."]
[Footnote 244: "There is a Pastoral Masque to be performed on the 27th
inst., in York Buildings, for the benefit of Mr. Clayton, and composed
by him. This gentleman is the person who introduced the Italian opera
into Great Britain, and hopes he has pretensions to the favour of all
lovers of music, who can get over the prejudice of his being their
countryman" (_Tatler_, original folio, No. 163).
Thomas Clayton, in association with Haym and Dieuport, began a series of
operatic performances at Drury Lane Theatre in 1705, commencing with
"Arsinoe," which was a success. In 1707 he produced a setting of
Addison's "Rosamond," but it was played only three times. The opera
performances were continued until 1711, after which Clayton gave
concerts in York Buildings (see _Spectator_, No. 258). He died about
1730.]
[Footnote 245: In the Strand. In 1713 Steele started a scheme for "a
noble entertainment for persons of refined taste," in York Buildings.]
[Footnote 246: At Charing Cross, with a back door into Spring Gardens.]
[Footnote 247: See Nos. 153, 157, 168.]
[Footnote 248: In the _Daily Courant_ for Aug. 18, 1710, there was
advertised as just published a pamphlet called "A Good Husband for Five
Shillings; or, Esquire Bickerstaff's Lottery for the London Ladies.
Wherein those that want bedfellows, in an honest way, will have a fair
chance to be well fitted." It was complained that husbands were scarce
through the war. The title exhausts all that is of interest in the
pamphlet, with the exception of the frontispiece, which represents a
room in which a lottery is being drawn, with two wheels of fortune, &c.]
[Footnote 249: Nichols notes that a correction in this number, intimated
in the following paper, was actually made in a copy before him, and
concluded that there was sometimes more than one impression of the
original folio issue. This was certainly the case. There is a set of the
_Tatlers_ in folio in the British Museum (press-mark 628 m 13) in which
many of the numbers are set up somewhat differently from the ordinary
issue (Nos. 4, 28, 29, 30, &c.). Sometimes there is a line more or less
in a column; sometimes slightly different type is used in one or two
advertisements.]
No. 167. [STEELE.
From _Tuesday, May 2_, to _Thursday, May 4, 1710_.
Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem,
Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus----
HOR., Ars Poet. 180.
* * * * *
_From my own Apartment, May 2._
Having received notice, that the famous actor Mr. Betterton[250] was to
be interred this evening in the cloisters near Westminster Abbey, I was
resolved to walk thither, and see the last office done to a man whom I
had always very much admired, and from whose action I had received more
strong impressions of what is great and noble in human nature, than from
the arguments of the most solid philosophers, or the descriptions of the
most charming poets I had ever read. As the rude and untaught multitude
are no way wrought upon more effectually than by seeing public
punishments and executions, so men of letters and education feel their
humanity most forcibly exercised, when they attend the obsequies of men
who had arrived at any perfection in liberal accomplishments. Theatrical
action is to be esteemed as such, except it be objected, that we cannot
call that an art which cannot be attained by art. Voice, stature,
motion, and other gifts, must be very bountifully bestowed by Nature, or
labour and industry will but push the unhappy endeavourer, in that way,
the further off his wishes.
Such an actor as Mr. Betterton ought to be recorded with the same
respect as Roscius among the Romans. The greatest orator[251] has
thought fit to quote his judgment, and celebrate his life. Roscius was
the example to all that would form themselves into proper and winning
behaviour. His action was so well adapted to the sentiments he
expressed, that the youth of Rome thought they wanted only to be
virtuous to be as graceful in their appearance as Roscius. The
imagination took a lively impression of what was great and good; and
they who never thought of setting up for the arts of imitation, became
themselves imitable characters.
There is no human invention so aptly calculated for the forming a
free-born people as that of a theatre. Tully reports that the celebrated
player of whom I am speaking used frequently to say, "The perfection of
an actor is only to become what he is doing." Young men, who are too
unattentive to receive lectures, are irresistibly taken with
performances. Hence it is, that I extremely lament the little relish the
gentry of this nation have at present for the just and noble
representations in some of our tragedies. The operas which are of late
introduced can leave no trace behind them that can be of service beyond
the present moment. To sing and to dance are accomplishments very few
have any thoughts of practising; but to speak justly, and move
gracefully, is what every man thinks he does perform, or wishes he did.
I have hardly a notion, that any performer of antiquity could surpass
the action of Mr. Betterton in any of the occasions in which he has
appeared on our stage. The wonderful agony which he appeared in, when he
examined the circumstance of the handkerchief in "Othello"; the mixture
of love that intruded upon his mind upon the innocent answers Desdemona
makes, betrayed in his gesture such a variety and vicissitude of
passions, as would admonish a man to be afraid of his own heart, and
perfectly convince him, that it is to stab it to admit that worst of
daggers, jealousy. Whoever reads in his closet this admirable scene,
will find that he cannot, except he has as warm an imagination as
Shakespeare himself, find any but dry, incoherent, and broken sentences:
but a reader that has seen Betterton act it, observes there could not be
a word added; that longer speeches had been unnatural, nay impossible,
in Othello's circumstances. The charming passage in the same tragedy,
where he tells the manner of winning the affection of his mistress, was
urged with so moving and graceful an energy, that while I walked in the
cloisters, I thought of him with the same concern as if I waited for the
remains of a person who had in real life done all that I had seen him
represent. The gloom of the place, and faint lights before the ceremony
appeared, contributed to the melancholy disposition I was in; and I
began to be extremely afflicted, that Brutus and Cassius had any
difference; that Hotspur's gallantry was so unfortunate; and that the
mirth and good humour of Falstaff could not exempt him from the grave.
Nay, this occasion in me, who look upon the distinctions amongst men to
be merely scenical, raised reflections upon the emptiness of all human
perfection and greatness in general; and I could not but regret, that
the sacred heads which lie buried in the neighbourhood of this little
portion of earth in which my poor old friend is deposited, are returned
to dust as well as he, and that there is no difference in the grave
between the imaginary and the real monarch. This made me say of human
life itself with Macbeth:
"_To-morrow, to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in a stealing pace from day to day,
To the last moment of recorded time!
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
To their eternal night! Out, out short candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more._"[252]
The mention I have here made of Mr. Betterton, for whom I had, as long
as I have known anything, a very great esteem and gratitude for the
pleasure he gave me, can do him no good; but it may possibly be of
service to the unhappy woman he has left behind him,[253] to have it
known, that this great tragedian was never in a scene half so moving as
the circumstances of his affairs created at his departure. His wife,
after the cohabitation of forty years in the strictest amity, has long
pined away with a sense of his decay, as well in his person as his
little fortune; and in proportion to that, she has herself decayed both
in her health and her reason. Her husband's death, added to her age and
infirmities, would certainly have determined her life, but that the
greatness of her distress has been her relief, by a present deprivation
of her senses. This absence of reason is her best defence against age,
sorrow, poverty, and sickness. I dwell upon this account so distinctly,
in obedience to a certain great spirit[254] who hides her name, and has
by letter applied to me to recommend to her some object of compassion,
from whom she may be concealed.
This, I think, is a proper occasion for exerting such heroic generosity;
and as there is an ingenuous shame in those who have known better
fortune to be reduced to receive obligations, as well as a becoming pain
in the truly generous to receive thanks in this case, both those
delicacies are preserved; for the person obliged is as incapable of
knowing her benefactress, as her benefactress is unwilling to be known
by her.